Once Upon A Dice Game
by Ebenbild
Summary: Life is a series of embarrassing moments which leave you feeling alone in your confusion and shame.(Miranda Hart) Time travel can be it as well. AU after war in 7th book


_Author's Note: Written for Season 6 of the QLFC_

 _Finals 1_

 _Team: Pride of Portree_

 _Position: Chaser 2_

 _Prompt:_ _Hot Tub Time Travel_

 _Additional Prompts:_

 _[emotion] Disgust_

 _[quote] 'Life is a series of embarrassing moments which leave you feeling alone in your confusion and shame.' — Miranda Hart_

 _[object] Dice_

 _Word Count: 3,023_

 _Betas: Claude Amelia Song, crochetaway, Litfreak89_

 _Additional Author's Note:_

 _ **Disclaimer**_ _: I'm too young to be Rowling so there is sadly no way Harry Potter is mine…_

 _Thank you to Claude Amelia Song for helping me with my title!_

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sSsSsSsSs

 _ **ONCE UPON A DICE GAME**_

sSs

 _'Life is a series of embarrassing moments which leave you feeling alone in your confusion and shame.' — Miranda Hart_

sSs

"Well— have you finally decided what to do with your toss?"

"I've still time. This only the second time I had a turn, Potter. Don't you dare rush me!"

"You've been looking at your dice for the last five minutes. Make your third throw, now, Malfoy! I'm not about to stay here the whole night for a simple game of Yahtzee!"

Malfoy threw his dice partner an annoyed look, but reached for the dice he wanted to use in his third throw anyway.

"If I end up losing because you rushed me, Potter, I want a rematch!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, Malfoy; just hurry up and throw the dice already before I actually take root here!"

"Don't worry, Harry." Luna interrupted the staring contest between the Slytherin and the Gryffindor. Both of them stopped arguing— Malfoy looking as if he was about to throw the dice again— to stare at their fellow player.

"No, Luna don't—" Hermione started but stopped immediately, already resigned to hearing one of Luna's Luna-statements.

Neville — the last of the unlikely gamblers — sighed tiredly. Obviously, after playing a game — that normally took about thirty or forty minutes — for three hours, even the most patient person was reaching his limit.

Nevertheless, both reactions didn't stop Luna in her elaboration— not that anything had ever stopped her...

"There are no Yellow Root-Branchers to ensure you set down roots here," she assured Harry and looked dreamily at the ceiling made of wooden beams. "But then, maybe if we had created a ceiling less high than the one we did, we would have to be concerned about them as much as we have to be about Nargles and Blibbering Humdingers-"

"Shut up, Lovegood!" Malfoy interrupted her in that moment. "Nobody wants to hear the insanity spilling from your mouth."

"Of course, Draco Malfoy," Luna replied, unbothered. "Just don't roll another six pips, will you?"

The Malfoy heir scoffed and then threw the dice.

"Finally!" Harry exclaimed.

The dice stopped rolling.

The last thing they could see was the fifth six pip meeting its companions; then the world tilted and warped before they all blacked out.

sSs

When Malfoy woke up, he found himself in his bed in the Slytherin dormitories.

He blinked the sleep out of his eyes and then frowned.

It had been at least three months since he had slept last in his bed in the dormitories. Since the war ended, Malfoy had been forced to either sleep in a less accommodating place like Azkaban or at the Leaky Cauldron after he had been released, thanks to Potter and his statement.

Of course, that didn't mean that there weren't consequences. Truthfully, his whole stay at Hogwarts and even the game of dice had been a penalty on his part...well, Malfoy had to admit that the penalty hadn't included playing dice with Potter, Lovegood, Granger and Longbottom, but considering that the game of dice had only started to test the Room of Requirement for damage, he counted it anyway.

Nevertheless, all that didn't explain how Malfoy had ended up in his former dormitory after the last night...

"It can't have been that late," Malfoy mused disgusted with himself. "I wouldn't have spent my whole day with Scarhead, Loony, Mudblood, and the Squib! It's unbecoming for a Malfoy to even think about something like that!"

But then, Potter and Longbottom were both war heroes— to be seen in their company could only help the Malfoy name...

There was just one problem with that thought.

"Nobody would have seen us in that damn room," Malfoy reasoned. "I wouldn't have even been there if the alternative wasn't to help the new mudbloods and blood traitors to find their way throughout the school!"

Before Malfoy could muse further about his problem, his curtains were pulled back and Blaise Zabini looked down upon him.

"Awake, Malfoy?" he asked the other man, who was still too shocked to actually understand what he was seeing. "How about you stand up? We have Transfiguration soon, and you might want to have breakfast."

"I'm up, Zabini," Malfoy snarled, more out of habit and not because he actually meant it.

Zabini... looked twelve at the most.

 _How by Merlin and Morgana did Zabini end up looking so young overnight?!_

That question actually grew into more than one when Malfoy emerged from his bed and saw Nott, Goyle, and Crabbe...

The last boy gave Malfoy pause before he finally concluded what he should have already concluded the moment he had woken up in his former dormitory.

"Potter!" he screeched, stopping everybody else in his dormitory in their tracks. Before Malfoy could even think about his actions any further, he had already thrown on some clothes and was on his way to the Great Hall to strangle Potter.

There was no doubt in his mind that there could only be one reason why he was seeing Crabbe in this insane vision— and that reason was definitely the fault of the Boy-Who-Would-Die-At-Malfoy's-Hands!

Maybe in the hindsight storming into the Great Hall screeching Potter's name wasn't the best thing Malfoy could have done, but, well, for all the embarrassment it caused Malfoy being stared at by the whole school, if Malfoy actually had to think about it, he didn't regret it... at all.

sSs

"You are aware that we are totally screwed," Neville commented, while sitting down in the semi-circle they had formed in the Room of Requirement. "We're back in first year and nobody seems to even know that we're back!"

"Of course not," Luna agreed. "We all look like we did the first time around. Nobody knows we're back."

At that, Harry and Neville exchanged a disbelieving glance with each other.

"Er... Luna," Neville said slowly,"if that's so, why doesn't anybody wonder about you right now? I mean, you're currently ten! You shouldn't be here in Hogwarts right now!"

"Of course not," Luna agreed. "But most people aren't that good when it comes to telling apart the age of children to the year. They're mostly off about a year or two, and with all the new first years, nobody is too sure where this little firsty or that one truly belongs as long as they don't wear their uniform, that is."

At that, she looked pointedly at Malfoy, who had the grace to blush.

"It's not as if Potter and I aren't known to fight without rhyme and reason," he countered, pouting. He was still embarrassed by the fact that he had been screeching around in the Great Hall.

"I still think it was a bit out of character that you didn't threaten Harry with your father and instead called him The-One-Who-Fucked-Up-The-Defeat-Of-The-Snake-Face," Neville said matter-of-factly. Obviously, as the leader of the resistance within Hogwarts and after being nearly killed by Voldemort himself, he had grown a back-bone.

Malfoy growled.

"Yeah well, if Potter hadn't brought us to the past, nobody would have even blinked an eye at my words!" he countered unhappily.

"Hey!" Harry protested. "I wasn't the one who–"

"You were!" Malfoy interrupted him. "You always are!"

Harry opened his mouth to protest when Hermione spoke up.

"I fear that, for once, I'm forced to agree with Malfoy," she said. "Just take a look at our first year: You were involved in the troll incident, in the whole secret of the third floor, and I guess in everything else as well; the same goes for second through sixth year as well."

"But I wasn't the reason why they happened!" Harry pouted.

"If you consider that everything happened because Lord Voldemort was after you, I think Draco Malfoy and Hermione might have a point, Harry," Luna said and smiled dreamily at him. "But don't worry. The Blibbering Humdinger has already eaten the chocolate frog; now, we have to deal with the fallout."

"You mean we have to ensure that we don't change the past so that we don't change the future," Harry said frowning.

Hermione nodded forcefully, her eyes threatening the others not to even think about something like that.

"But why?" Neville asked frowning. "We could change everything! Everything that went wrong–"

"And we could end up expelling ourselves from Hogwarts or ensuring that Luna'll never enter Hogwarts or whatever," Harry pointed out. "Or worse– we could end up with Voldemort as our minister, no offence, Malfoy."

Malfoy snorted.

"After the last two years, Potter?" he said with a sigh. "No offence taken— definitely no offence taken."

"Good," Harry said. "Now how do we keep the timeline intact? After all, Hermione would kill me if we destroyed friendships or relationships."

Needless to say, that in the end, for all their planning, everything went quickly to hell quite spectacularly.

But then, how should they have been able to plan it when it was the little things that threw them for a loop?

sSs

The first thing that threw Harry for a loop, was Snape.

They had Potions first, and Snape came in and Harry—

Harry couldn't even explain what happened.

He disliked Snape.

There were years and years of animosity.

But there was also the fact that the other man had done everything to keep Harry safe.

There was James Potter and Snape's hatred for him.

And there was Lily Evans living on in her son...

Yes, Harry didn't know what happened.

The only thing he knew was the fact that when he regained his mind, he was standing in front of the whole class, hugging the Potions professor around the waist, babbling _'sorry, sorry, sorry'_ all the while.

"Potter!" Snape stared at him as if he was a bug, ready to be squashed.

The whole class gawked and Harry flushed.

He had hugged Snape.

He. Had. _Hugged_. Snape!

AND– _he had done it in front of the entire class._

Harry coloured even brighter before letting go of his professor, who looked ready to spit nails.

"I... I'm sorry," Harry stuttered.

"Detention, Potter!" was Snape's only reply while Harry wished to be able to bury himself in a hole.

Not even the hundred point-loss could faze Harry after embarrassing himself like that in front of the whole class…

sSs

But then, there were other things that threw them off-course as well, and those things were a lot less serious than embracing a living and breathing Potions professor.

"No! I'm not wearing that! That's...that's...No! Just no!"

"Oh, come on, Harry; it's just a pair of socks!"

"But... but they're disgusting and horrendous and... and I can't wear them! I simply can't— Hermione!"

The girl in question entered their dorm room after hearing her name being screamed across Gryffindor tower.

"What's going on now, Harry?" she asked the moment she entered, a bit exasperated.

Pretending to be uneducated eleven-year-olds wasn't easy for her with Harry's tendency for trouble and his hardheadedness...

So of course she entered ready for everything.

"Neville is forcing me to wear Uncle Vernon's hideous socks!"

 _Well... nearly everything._ _**That**_ _argument, she hadn't expected._

"Just live with it," Hermione said strict, nevertheless. "You wore them before, you'll wear them now."

"But... but that's the pair I used for Ron's birthday present in third year! I never wore them after I put the sneakoscope in there!" Harry complained.

"Well, then past-you can do that as well when he reaches third-year. Until then, you wear those socks if you have to!" Hermione replied frowning.

"But... but Hermione-!"

"No _but_ s, Harry! This is just temporary! The moment we return to the future, you won't ever have to wear them again; until then, you do everything like you did it in the past!" Hermione countered.

Harry frowned and then looked disgustedly at his socks. For a moment, Hermione feared that she had to argue further, but then, Harry closed his eyes, sighed, and then pulled on the first sock.

"Good boy," Hermione said, then turned around and left.

sSs

No, living in the past wasn't easy - for any of them.

"I... I can't believe something like that was my favourite sweater!" Hermione wailed.

"Well... I actually don't know if it was your favorite, but I remember you wearing it pretty often," Harry replied frowning while watching his best friend search for a sweater to wear over her shirt.

Neville next to him nodded with a straight face.

"That basically implied it was my favourite!" Hermione said, sobbing. "It's horrendous!"

Harry just patted her shoulder sympathetically.

"I know your plight," he said. "But like you said: if you wore it back then, you'll have to wear it now. After all, we mustn't change time!"

Hermione sobbed again, then took a deep breath and forced the pullover over her head.

Harry smiled at her and patted her shoulder some more.

"Don't worry. It's only until we manage to return to our time. It will be over soon," he assured her.

Hermione nodded, squared her shoulders, and then left the room, leaving Harry and Neville behind.

The moment the door closed, Neville turned towards Harry.

"She doesn't remember what she liked, does she?" he asked with a frown.

Harry grinned.

"She doesn't," he agreed. "I wonder how long it will take her to remember that she deliberately put on that sweater at the end of the year in case it might... _accidentally_... be ripped while we rescued the Philosopher's stone."

Neville shook his head.

"Since when do you prank people?" he asked with a sigh. "I can't remember you pranking anybody ever."

"Well...," Harry said, "there's always a first time, isn't it? And she deserved it after forcing me to wear those hideous socks!"

sSs

Nevertheless, slowly but surely, over the weeks of searching for their way home, they got used to each other and their situation.

Harry was working on his homework in the Room of Requirement when Malfoy suddenly entered and flopped down next to him.

"Malfoy!" Harry cried. "What are you doing here?"

He didn't think that he had to add the implied ' _with me_ ' to his sentence.

"Hiding," Malfoy drawled and sprawled further onto his chair.

"Hiding from who?"

"My former self," Malfoy growled as an answer. "Acting like him is getting on my nerves!"

When Harry threw him a disbelieving look, Malfoy obviously took that as his cue to elaborate.

"It's always ' _My father this, my father that..._ '! I swear to you, Potter, if I have to say that sentence just one more time, I'm going to commit suicide!"

"Oh," Harry said and then frowned. "Well, if you decide to do so after the next time, just don't do it near me. I've seen enough death for a lifetime."

"Don't worry, Potter," Malfoy replied dryly. "As long as you don't confront me outside of this room, you might even be lucky and not be anywhere near me when I finally decide to do it."

"Good," Harry replied and then corrected his spelling of ' _potions_ ' into ' _poshuns_.'

"What?" Harry said when Malfoy stared. "That's how I spelled it until I turned thirteen!"

He was met with absolute disbelief.

"You truly were an idiot, weren't you, Potter?" Malfoy finally settled on, and Harry, instead of arguing back, just rolled his eyes, and that was the end of the discussion for that day.

sSs

Finally, half a month later, they found a way back.

"It's really easy," Luna said dreamily. "We just have to finish our dice game– without Malfoy throwing another six pips."

The others stared at her incredulously.

"How, by Merlin, did you come up with that, Luna?" Harry finally dared to ask.

Luna blinked.

"Oh," she said. "I have always known. I thought you might want to have a holiday, so I didn't say anything."

Malfoy and Hermione opened their mouths—clearly to protest—just to close them again when they saw that they had the same reaction.

"Actually, Luna," Neville said instead. "I think I might have liked a vacation in the future more."

"Oh," Luna said. "Why? As far as I know, you didn't have any embarrassing moments in the past..."

Malfoy and Harry flushed.

"Luna!" Harry screeched.

"Lovegood!" Malfoy did the same.

Luna just smiled at them.

"I just thought that if you shared an embarrassing moment or two with each other, you might not feel so alone anymore," she pointed out. "You both always seemed quite lonely even while having friends—especially you, Malfoy. Now you have at least each other."

Both boys opened their mouths, but in the end closed them again, deciding individually that it wasn't worth arguing with Luna.

"Whatever, Lovegood," Malfoy said. "Let's get that game started so that we can return home."

"Of course," Luna said and the next moment, the game was back in the middle of them.

Harry, Hermione, Neville, and Malfoy eyed the dice nervously, but in the end, forced themselves to sit down and start playing.

Luna finished the game first.

"So—"

"You're not done yet," Luna said. "There's still one toss to finish."

With that, she stood up and went to the door.

"Luna, what—?" Harry stuttered and Luna smiled her dreamy smile at him.

"I won't come with you back to the future," she said. "Instead, I will return home to Daddy. I'm sure he's already missing me."

"B... but—" Neville stuttered. Luna just smiled.

"We see each other in the future," she promised and stepped out of the room.

Malfoy dropped the dice.

For a moment they rolled and when they stopped turning, they ended up showing one pip.

The world warped and tilted—and when they woke up they were back where they belonged.

sSs

Or something like that, at least.

"What do you mean, Malfoy is my best friend?!" Harry screeched. "What about Ron?!"

"Wait! Me and Fred Weasley?" Hermione asked confused. "How by Merlin's beard did I end up with a prankster as a fiancé?!"

"Er... thanks for my parents, Luna, but... why do I have poisonous plants as my bed-neighbours?"

"No, Lovegood, never!" Malfoy screeched. "Not even in a hundred years! NEVER!"

"Oh," Luna said dreamily. "So you didn't want to be an actor in the muggle world? And I thought that it was one of your secret wishes... I guess I should have gone with the supermodel..."

"Lovegood!"

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 _Back to time travel and insanity._

 _I hope you liked it._

 _Ebenbild_


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